Women's Super League agree historic broadcasting deal with Sky & BBC

The English FA have agreed a new broadcasting deal which will see the Women's Super League broadcast on terrestrial TV for the first time ever.

The current TV deal, which is shared by BBC and BT Sport, is believed to offer very little money to the FA and instead simply covers production costs, but that contract is up at the end of the season and talks have long been underway about finding a new agreement.

The Telegraph first revealed back in December that the BBC and Sky Sports were close to striking a new deal which would offer 'significant' income from the broadcasters, and the Daily Mail now say the deal is done.

Starting next season, WSL matches will be broadcast on terrestrial TV, with Sky Sports bagging first pick of the weekly games. They will be the primary rights holders, with BBC remaining the secondary partner.

There is no mention of the fee involved apart from it being a 'multi-million pound deal', with Sky offering up the majority of the sum, but perhaps the most important thing could be the increased audience afforded to the games.

The BBC are adamant that broadcasting games live across both BBC One and BBC Two will see women's football attract an audience which normally would not tune in to games, highlighting the 500,000-strong audience who tune in to the late night Women’s Football Show every Sunday.

Broadcasters have been alerted to the potential of women's football ever since the 2019 World Cup, during which 11.7m people tuned in to watch England's semi-final defeat to the USA on BBC One.

Talks with TV companies overseas began soon after that, with some of the first agreements coming to broadcast the WSL in Mexico and in Scandinavia.

In September 2020, things stepped up to a whole new level when deals were struck to see the league shown in Germany, Italy and the United States, and a deal with the English media has finally followed suit.

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